


a greenhouse of barbed wire and roses

by crocs



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Canon Universe, F/F, Fluff, Gardening, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-23 20:34:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13795812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crocs/pseuds/crocs
Summary: Izzy's warm hand squeezes and stays on her shoulder as she leans over to get a good look at what Clary's doing. Her perfume lingers with the scent of lavender. Attentive brown eyes flick between the plot of planted and unplanted seeds and Clary's face, and eventually settle by looking deep into Clary's own.





	a greenhouse of barbed wire and roses

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I am not the creator or owner of these characters. They belong to their respective rights holders.

 

Clary presses the small seed into the soil. She reaches for the dirt that's been displaced from the force of the press and rakes it over gently with her fingers. The trowel sits unused on the workbench. She knows that she's going to have said soil under her nails for an uncomfortable while but she doesn't really care about that at the moment.

One time, in middle school, she accidentally rested her arm on a wet piece of her artwork and got purple acrylic paint all up the inside of her arm. It stayed there for well over a month. Eventually, she got sick of the bright splash against her veins and spent an evening scraping and scrubbing it off with a wet old hand towel.

She made the same mistake two days later with a splodge of green paint.

Clary absentmindedly rubs the burned rune that now rests on that same area. She sighs. She gets back to work.

Footsteps fall lightly where her back is turned, and for once, Clary doesn't need to turn around to know who it is. In a past life, Clary's often thought, Izzy must have been some sort of ballerina — the lithe movements she makes are too precise to have her believe anything other.

Izzy's warm hand squeezes and stays on her shoulder as she leans over to get a good look at what Clary's doing. Her perfume lingers with the scent of lavender. Attentive brown eyes flick between the plot of planted and unplanted seeds and Clary's face, and eventually settle by looking deep into Clary's own.  
  
"We're eventually going to have to talk about it, you know," says Izzy, deceptively light, and Clary is struck with the uncertainty that she doesn't know exactly what 'it' is this time. Jonathan? Jace not being her brother? The Iron Sisters?

Then Izzy's gaze travels farther down her face to her lips and Clary understands. The 'it' is them. Whatever they are together. She nods.

They rest a minute, make a ceasefire together for the discussion, a _not yet_. Izzy looks away from Clary but her hand keeps on rubbing circles on her shoulder and squeezing it in comfort.

The concentrated heat of the Institute's greenhouse washes over them like lazy waves over the golden sand. Clary's stele, laid haphazardly on the workbench on top of some old leather bound Shadowhunter handbooks, glints in the afternoon sun. Izzy shrugs off her shoes and stands barefoot at Clary's side, a strange sort of relaxed vigilance in the sun-blanketed warmth.

When she's finished, Clary pushes the plantpot further onto the window ledge, into the sun, seed planted, and shrugs off Izzy's shoulder-touch. Izzy's eyebrows furrow in confusion at the sudden movement until Clary takes the newly freed hand in her own.

"I think I could do a lot more than just talk," Clary says, dark and low and serious, with a small smile. Izzy smiles right back widely, like a shark, and leans in. Clary's pulse thuds. She takes a deep breath, and —

"— Oh no, not before you wash your hands first!" Izzy whispers quickly, with a laugh like rough bells. She unlatches Clary's grasp and sprints away from the communal greenhouse, cackling in delight. Clary chokes in caught and shocked laughter, only just remembers to grab her stele and Izzy's frankly dangerous heels, and runs right after her.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title adapted from _The Metal and the Flower_ by P.K. Page.


End file.
